BlackRock, Ukraine, and the Davos Gang
26th January 2023
In general, the war in Ukraine is being approached by Western public opinion from a humanitarian perspective that sympathizes with the enormous suffering of the Ukrainian people while at the same time morally denouncing the aggressor: Putin. All this, though undoubtedly a just analysis that gives an accurate account of the culprits and victims, nevertheless brings with it at least two problems.
Firstly, the humanitarian focus gets in the way of hard geopolitical analysis, which is more important than the former both because of what is at stake and because statecraft, as opposed to humane sympathy, acts as the driving force on the global chessboard. But not only does a purely humanitarian focus conceal such important considerations; worst still, those who dare to engage in unsentimental geopolitical discourse outside of military and intelligence circles are automatically condemned by the media and the political class, and then ostracized. Geopolitics, it seems, is a mode of analysis not sanctioned by the court of political correctness.
Secondly, the humanitarian perspective with which the war in Ukraine is being judged greatly simplifies the complexity of actors and interests, attributing quasi-messianic qualities to Zelensky with which to confront his nemesis, Putin, and reducing to one dimension a conflict that in fact comprises many, both complementary and at odds with each other.
One of the most relevant of these aspects is the role that BlackRock—the world’s leading hedge-fund, boasting assets valued at more than $10 trillion—is playing in the Ukrainian war.